1. Field of the Invention
The invention refers to a device for the insertion of elements, in particular, electric elements, and preferably electric elements in the form of chips, into recesses of a belt.
It is a known and currently general practice that the components used in the manufacture or insertion of electric circuits are fed in belt form to the relevant manufacturing or insertion machine. This applies also to chip-like electric elements with an essentially platelike body and with electric connections which, in a specified position to each other and to the edges of the element body, project over one side, preferably over two opposite sides of the element body. Lately such chip-like components are used even for relatively simple functions, i.e. as so-called SMD-elements (service mounted devices), which, in the manufacture of electric circuits or in the assembly of respective printed circuit boards, are fitted to the connections of the tracks by soldering the small metal tab connections directly to a surface of the printed circuit board with tracks. The connections are bent in such a way that their free ends rest on a plane in the area of the bottom side of the element body.
In order to avoid errors in the automatic processing of the , elements a high degree of precision in the insertion of the elements into the recesses of the respective belt is required with respect to the functionality of the elements as well as to avoid empty spaces in the belt, and above all, with respect to the adherence to a specified positioning or orientation of the elements in the belt.
The invention is based on the task of providing a device which facilitates the insertion of elements into the recesses of a belt with high efficiency and maximum precision.
The invented device is particularly suitable for the insertion of electric components into the recesses of a belt and thus is specifically suitable for the insertion of such elements with a platelike element body and thus of chip-like form, so that the invented device is ideally suited also as a "chip belt". In this case the invented device is particularly suitable as a chip belt for the previously mentioned SMD elements.